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Arsenal to go back for N’Zonzi – Emery’s perfect midfielder?

The ex-Stoke midfielder Steven N’Zonzi was very heavily linked with a move to Arsenal in January after a very public falling out with his coach at Sevilla, and many Arsenal fans thought that he would be the perfect addition that the Gunners needed to give some protection to our out-of-form defenders.

It was even suggested that we had made a bid but the Sevilla heirarchy turned us down for offering way below the market value, but it looks like we could be going back to try again this summer. It would appear to be even more likely when you consider that it was Emery that took N’Zonzi to Sevilla in the first place, where he won a Europa League trophy together.

Arsenal fans should again be calling for the Gunners to renew their interest this summer and pay whatever it takes to bring the French international to the Emirates. No one can deny that we desperately need someone like him so why shouldn’t we go for the man with extensive premier League experience?

35 thoughts on “Arsenal to go back for N’Zonzi – Emery’s perfect midfielder?”

N’Zonzi would be a good addition but Sevilla won’t let him go for less than £30 Million. One player who Arsenal have overlooked is Mario Lemina at Southampton who is younger. Playing for a team that just missed relegation he deserves a bigger club. As a defensive midfielder he ticks all the boxes big, strong, disciplined, difficult to get off the ball & can run all day. I believe he is worth a shot as he was at Juventus the season before he would fit in well.

QD how many good DM’s have Arsenal passed up over the years for low transfer fees? Victor Wanyama from Glasgow Celtic also comes to mind. Cavahlo (still only 26) has been looked at in the past and is playing for Portugal in the World Cup.

My concern is that Sven, Raul and Unai may be a bit “Euro centric” and miss options in the UK like Lemina and Watford’s Duocoure. There may be others in the lower leagues with talent, technique and drive.
My comment below was in response to Quantic Dream.

You are very much on point. Kante who is now the rave of the moment was an unknown quantity before Leicester snapped him up for a pantry sum. Today the story is there to be told of him. Lemina is strong on both feet and he could do better than our fanciful Xchaka.

Weren’t most people here saying Lemina is average despite barely watching him?Can name many players who people here thought weren’t good enough for us and now we are linked to them for almost double or triple their former price tags.

Samu Castillejo – remember that name. I have been watching him at Villareal for the last season and a half and I have to say, the kid is real quality – lightning fast, loves to shoot from distance with his left foot, loves to run at defenders. The only cons I see with him that can be easily Ironed out are he sometimes goes to ground a bit too easy and his end product could use some work but im sure Emery can sort it out.

He seems to tick all the checkboxes: Premier League experience, tall, strong, used to make Sevilla very competitive (despite they finished at the 7th position this season) and will participate in World Cup

Xhaka also performed well for Swiss and Borussia Mönchengladbach, tall and strong, that was why Arsenal bought him. But he could be replaced by N’zonzi, because Emery used to work with him

Premier League experience wise, Arsenal should chase Denis Suarez instead of Seri, because he used to play for Man City, Spanish and he is used to play with Barcelona level

We begged for his signing 6 years ago when he left Blackburn for Stoke city for a paltry £3M and the club refused. Now we are supposed to pay £30M for a 30 year old N’zonzi who Sevilla don’t even want? Hell no, look for somebody else why are we always going for has been rejects!

Arsenal should rather go for Torreira of sampdoria. He is a terrific defensive midfielder and very young. He has Ball winning skills, great passer and awesome dribbling skill for a DM, very strong and aggressive. Arsenal shouldn’t miss that guy for any reason. Watch him on YouTube.

Catriona Fansadox,
So first you blame the board (quite rightly) then go on to say that it’s our ex manager’s legacy!
Make up your mind, it’s one of the other.
I’m suggesting your first statement is correct and that is why we are seeing it happening again.
Unless,of course, the manager quite rightly is assessing our current players before making any decisions?
Please don’t keep blaming the ex manager’s history for what is occurring now…it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever!

Steven Nzonzi is a great STOP-GAP like sokratis. Anymore than 20m is money down the toilet. Rather we just coughed up the money and bought Ndidi or Rabiot as a long term investment. I reckon this is all media garbage cause if we werent willing to sign a 45 million point fabinho, we’re not signing Nzonzi for 30 million that makes no sense

Yeah he’s 29, if that was Seville coming to us for a transfer over to themselves, they would scarcely go above 5m, between five to ten mil is what they would demand. I don’t think they would go as high as 15m Euro’s. We should get Nzonzi to do the work for us, they won’t stand in his way of on one last attempt at joining a great great club. He would make himself an outcast to get this move, we should play hard ball and start acting like (I can’t believe I’m saying this) but we should act similar to Liv in the market. If someone want’s one of ours, we say never before naming a ridiculous price or else they may forget about it.

…And when looking for improvements, only if he is a quality player who has the complete form going for him and not just promising form of late. I say Nzonzi is not worth over 8m. CDM’s are plentiful and there are no real stand out ones who we can beat the better clubs to, not obvious ones.

This lad needs his pace, he only has one contract in him before that pace leaves him. He played for Blackburn and Seville, he is not a quality signing. He has uses, but we’ll be aiming higher eventually, he’s a stop gap who might add some bite to our play. He has numbers going against him at international level, how many players are ahead of him. Eight mil in pounds, that’s his true price, and Seville wont allow contracts to run out or down before his transfer fee dissipates. Anyone else with me on this one, or do you think he’s worth 20 – 30 million. We’ll know just how good our team behind the team are with this stuff, it’s what Raul, Mislintat, and Emery were all brought in to do.

Me too Sue, got tickets for my son, grandson and myself, club level on half way line. Was great when we saw them last time and was good to see the Romford Pele play but I think he only lasted a few more minutes! Kanu still looked useful and he must be about 58 now ha ha.

Kanu, one of the few players that pace has nothing to do with his game. The man was a genius with the ball, some of it looked gravity defying, mystifying, absolutely crazy looking. Bergkamp was a thing of beauty, but Kanu was a puzzle wrapped in an enigma, black magic.The kind of cool vs that old black magic. Wonderful era for truly inspiration football lovers.

You watching that series too, I did like it but I don’t love it. They sort of done a role reversal for good guy bad guy, was strange at first but now that the Kobra Kai’s original Sensei is back we might get to see a character really worth hating. The only thing I didn’t like about that first movie was the crane kick, illegal move Danny should’ve been disqualified, reason I know this well is because I was a purple belt in ..Fu quin ru Ning.

Haha yeah mate, it’s my 80s nostalgia 😂 I have to say I really enjoyed season one.. still a bit cheesy but so was the original and I don’t mind that haha. It would be interesting if they bring back Mike Barnes and Terry Silver as I felt they were the real bullies.. Johnny just sort of done what he was told! Kinda rooting for him in this one over Daniel! I did not know that mate, I thought one kick was as legal as the other as long its not below the belt 😯

Haha you and me both Sue.. then find out season 2 might not be out until may 2019, I mean come on that’s a bit long to keep us all waiting, I’d rather they would just air one episode a week 😂 Johnny is the best character no doubt, larusso has let his success go to his head haha! Oh well I’ve got supernatural to keep me entertained until season 2 kicks off!

Fella at Watford PERFECT but. As cash is tight premier clubs selling to prem clubs differcult because both player/agents and club want top top dollar!! Again whatever his name is would be ideal as he ticks all the boxes

See that CDM player, in an Emery team he becomes a third Cb by dropping right back when defending, esp when it’s from a decent break. Emery likes his fullbacks to push high right up the field similar to Wenger, Klopp, Pep and the likes. You’ll see yourself, his teams look like a three six one, or a three four three allot of the time even though on paper it’s 4141. At PSG that is what he was like, am not sure about his previous sides. PSG had such a wealth of talent that I remember watching their defenders passing it around at the back one day (not to the left), and I was thinking holy s**t and we think we like to play around back there. No lies, they were playing ping pong tennis and volleying, lobbing, flicks and the whole shenanigans. They were good at it on this day, the defenders looked like how we used to look in CM when Rosicky, Fab, Wilshere, all used to play the one or two touch limit type of stuff. I can only imagine there were times when it didn’t go so well for them.